1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the field of computers, and in particular to multiple blade servers housed in a server chassis. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for filtering, through a secure remote supervisor, responses from Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers to a blade server's request for network configuration parameters, such that responses to the request for configuration parameters are only accepted from trusted DHCP servers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Server blade computers offer multiple server blades (boards) in a single chassis (blade chassis). Although each server blade may be under at least partial control of a primary server blade in the chassis, each server blade typically functions as an independent server to specific clients. A typical arrangement of such as system is shown in FIG. 1, in which a blade chassis 102, having multiple server blades 103a–c, is connected to a network 106, which connects to multiple clients 104.
In order to initially connect to network 106, each of the server blades 103 may utilize a network identification protocol known as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). DHCP allows each server blade 103 to obtain an Internet Protocol (IP) network address and other configuration parameters from a DHCP server in a configuration servers network 108.
To initialize on the network 106, a server blade 103 broadcasts a request for configuration parameters to configuration servers network 108. One or more of the DHCP servers in configuration servers network 108 responds back to server blade 103 with a dynamic IP address along with lease information and other configuration parameters. If responses from multiple DHCP servers in configuration servers network 108 are put on network 106, then server blade 103 typically responds to the first DHCP server response to arrive at server blade 103.
A network initialization of server blade 103 as described is not secure, since the broadcasted configuration parameter request can result in a response from any DHCP server connected to server blade 103, including an unauthorized DHCP server attempting mischief. What is needed, therefore, is a method and system that prevents server blade initialization by an unauthorized DHCP server.